Lab Bat
by DarknessnoYoru
Summary: A new experiment is held at The School and it's up to the latest lab rat to escape and try to find a new life as partbat among the regular humans. Rated T to be on the safe side.
1. Caught and Escaped!

Disclaimer: Overall idea, places, and concepts are originally from the mind of James Patterson.

''''The character is my own creation and might not actually ever meet up with the flock, I don't know yet, so this story is _loosely_ based upon the Maximum Ride series.

**Lab Bat**

**Chapter 1: Caught and Escaped!**

I remember those conspiracy stories of the children with wings, six of them if memory serves right. Just let me tell you, it's not a conspiracy; it's true.

Want to know how I know?

The same thing that happened to them happened to me. Only, I didn't become a lab rat until the age of 14. You see, I was in a car accident, and the scientists took me away and told my parents I had died. They claimed my body was lost when the engine blew and they handed my parents my cindered school ID. But really, I was shipped to their secret lab somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere, California.

I always said that I wanted to start life over, who would've thought my new life involved being tested on by freaks. I'll never be able to go back to my family. If I did, well, I could imagine it now. I would walk up to my parents and say "Hey, I never really died. Those doctors lied to you and they took me away." Then my parents would admit themselves into the loony bin. Yeah, like that would go over well.

Anyway, it seems I've gotten slightly off topic. During the majority of tests performed on me, I was on anesthetics since I was actually healing from that car crash. Even while I was in that chemically induced, dreamless sleep, I still felt a distant pain, and if I was 'under' during that pain, and I still felt it, if only slightly, it must have REALLY hurt.

I woke up one day in a large dog crate and when I looked around I saw kids much younger than I in crates next to me, but upon closer observations, the kids were not all human. I screamed at the top of my lungs and nearly barfed my stomach.

I began frantically trying to find a way out of the cage, but my fingers would not fit through the holes. Just as my fingers were about raw from rubbing them against the bars in my desperate attempt to break free, a door opened into the room and footsteps were heard coming towards my general direction. A pair of legs stopped in front of me and the man bent over and unlocked my cage. I tried to push past him, but to no success. I felt a pinch against my back and everything went black.

When I woke up again, I was in an all-white room with a single wall of 2-inch thick glass. Looking out through the glass, I saw those scum scientists working with their machinery and on one computer screen I could see something that probably had my vitals and whatnot on it. I banged against the glass, but they took no notice of me and stared intently at their screens.

Just then a puffing noise whirred around me and a gray, misty smoke covered the white walls and filled my lungs and seeped into my pores. My eyes watered and I choked on the gas. A great pain filtered throughout my entire body and yet I was unable to scream. I opened my bloodshot eyes only to see those idiots still gazing at their screens. Oh how it made me want to beat the living crap out of them.

The pain seemed to fester around two points on my back and again I had to close my eyes because I could no longer see a thing. The next thing I knew I was being dragged along and dropped back off in what I think was my crate. I felt and heard my stomach growl. I guess with however long I've been here in this place I haven't had a substantial meal. It's like I was just some kind of experiment and I guess that's what they consider me, even to this day.

I slept painfully that night, because I could not find a comfortable position to sleep in, it was like the crate was smaller or something.

I woke up the next morning to a bright light fluttering through my closed eyelids, but when I opened my eyes everything was a giant blur. Being quite freaked out; I assumed fetal position and hugged myself closely. As I wrapped my arms around myself I felt something strange emerging from my back. I turned my head to its side and tried to look at what it was, because whatever it was, it was big. And there were two of them. But all I saw were two black blurs. Mentally freaking out, I avoided thinking about it and was forced to close my eyes, because it seemed as though everything was spinning.

I heard footsteps, but a door never opened, and I heard words, voices, but there was nobody around me, except those poor little deformed kids, but I had only ever heard them make strange inhuman sounds. All around me I heard _food_, or _scared_ or something along those lines. And as the footsteps resonated in my mind, I also heard an adult's voice, or… something like that. _Test subject 284035 seemed to react well to the tests placed upon it last night. The DNA mutation was a success. The bacterium in the gas seemed to replace and manipulate its original DNA strands. I wonder how long this one will last._

Okay, I had to have been hearing things, I mean, that was obviously from one of those scumbag scientists, but he wasn't in the room, and again his footsteps became louder and louder. Every little sound bounced inside my head with a loud resonance until eventually it seemed I reached my limit and I threw up my guts. I needed food and nourishment, desperately. Then the door opened and the footsteps and that voice grew louder than ever and I had to cover my ears.

I heard the scientist stop in front of my crate, I heard the harsh metal against metal as he unlocked the door, and I heard the creaks of the small hinges rubbing. Only everything was amplified at least 100 fold. He grabbed my wrist and forced me out of my cage. I could barely stand, and I had to force my eyes open and yet I was able to yell at the top of my lungs.

"What have you done to me? Why is everything so blurry and what the hell is coming out of my back?" I yelled. As I mentioned my back, I felt whatever the two things were move in response to my thoughts and I felt them kind of, catch a breeze. It was then that I realized what they were. They had given me wings. WINGS. I felt behind me at my newly grown wings and felt the leathery membrane in between two sets of bones, and as I traced the line of my wings, I felt little claws at the top of them.

_284035 seems to have realized the wings and her changes. I should make a mental note of this. So she can't see, hm, it seems as though the bat DNA has altered her quite a bit._

"BAT? You mean to tell me that I am now part bat!" as I yelled this, the glass window on the door shattered. Great, now I'm like real-life Batgirl. All I need now is Batman and Robin, Boy Wonder.

The scientist grabbed me by the wrist again, obviously trying to take me to some room and get me to perform other various 'tests', but I removed myself from his grasp and ran through the door, desperately making twists and turns until I found a way out. I ran, surprisingly well, and I didn't even run into anything. I heard the sounds bouncing off of everything and it was like I could still see perfectly… only not. After a few moments of running and lucky turns, I reached a kind of courtyard outside the building. But things went downhill from there. Apparently there were these other creatures there, they sounded like wolves. And they seemed delighted to see me. It was like they considered me some kind of treat. I felt their malice running through my bones and I just wanted to high-tail it out of there as fast as I could.

Then one jumped at me.

I dodged it surprisingly quickly, astonishing myself and the wolf-creature. Another one jumped right after the first and again I dodged. There was no escape for me, no hope at all. I felt a breeze blow through my hair and practically blow me over to the side. Then an idea hit me. Well, actually, one of the wolf-creatures hit me, but I knew what I had to do.


	2. Foiled Plans

The character is mine, the concept, not so much. Well, the bat, yes. But everything else, not my own. I must give credit to where it's due. James Patterson, I salute you! Oh yeah! I forgot to mention... this is my first fanfiction. Woah, I just rhymed big time! ... That last one was totally unintentional, I swear!

**Chapter 2: Foiled Plans**

I was flying—no—gliding in the air for about a half hour before I felt myself growing tired and even hungrier. I was already about a good maybe 50 miles away from wherever that place was and I needed a place where I could at least get a shower. Looking down towards the ground I realized that I actually had quite nice distance vision, it was only close-up things that apparently blurred my vision. But down at the ground, I saw lots of little fires and a lot of tents and cabins and campers. _Perfect! A campground!_ I thought to myself. I began losing altitude as I made my descent to the dark campground below.

Luckily the time was gaining on midnight, and nobody would be in the washrooms and I could get the entire area to myself. As I approached the door to the Ladies' bathroom though, I found a keypad by the door. _Stupid fancy shmancy campgrounds_, I thought. Then I got the idea of the little claw on my wing. I remember watching something on Animal Planet about how those little 'toes' are actually the bat's fingers and how they used them as fingers. I ducked down into the night against the door and began to work. I heard a click sound come from the doorknob and I turned it with success.

"Yes! I'm in!" As I stepped inside the room I looked around and made sure I was in here alone. Once the coast was clear, I looked in the shower stalls. _Hello? What's this? _I looked in one stall and found an entire make-up kit complete with shampoo, conditioner, and soap. _Jackpot!_ But then I realized I was still wearing the clothes from whenever those idiots had brought me to that horrible place. I guess I would just have to wash them the old fashioned way; take a shower with them on, scrub them, and then sit underneath the blow-dryer.

As I began my shower, my thoughts raced. So many questions popped into my head. It was like my thoughts were popcorn or something! Pop! How long was I in that place? Pop! Why did they choose me of all people? Pop! What happened to my family? Pop! Will I ever see them again?

Then it came to me; I was going to have to start life over. Entirely. Name change and everything. But who would I become? I began thinking of various names I could become. My old name didn't matter, I couldn't keep that anymore. Melissa? No. Alyssa? Ew. No. No offense to any Alyssa's out there. That name just… isn't for me. Max? Hah. I had a dog named Max once. Yeah, that one's out.

I ran through several names in my head before I finally settled on one; Jennifer Love Hewitt. Okay, so that one was a joke. Really, I hadn't decided on a name. It's hard. I mean, I'll have that name for the rest of my life, or… I have the possibility of having that name for the rest of my life.

I began scrubbing around my neck when I felt it. It was big, bulky, and I couldn't tell what it was, but it was like some kind of choker… or collar.

I finished my shower con mi clothes and stepped out to go underneath the dryer and look at the mirror. That's when I realized what it was. Of course, I had to be about 9 feet from the mirror in order to see it properly, but I could instantly tell what it was from the little blinking red LED light.

A tracking device.

That means they were following me. Probably right now! I had to get out of this place as soon as possible, but I was still so hungry, and the muscles in my wings aren't developed enough for more flying. It seemed like I was stuck. _No, don't even THINK that. They haven't shown up YET. Besides, they can't fly. _Or so I thought at the time. I rushed out the door only to run into something soft, hard, and fuzzy. Yes, both soft AND hard. Strange, I thought bats had better night vision, you know, being nocturnal and all that jazz. Maybe it was the change from the light of the bathroom to the darkness outside that—Oh never mind!

I backed up into the bathroom again. _Great, I'm getting pushed back into a corner, literally!_ It was then that I heard the rustling of feathers. No way! These guys had wings! I strictly remember the other creature-dude-things I fought did NOT have wings. Nu uh, no way! Aw man, I'm so totally screwed.

"Come here little batty batty bat," one of the guys taunted me. His voice sounded like a calm little creek. No! I can't get caught in their traps. I had to think of some way to escape. "If you come back with us willingly, we won't hurt you, you little freak of nature, you."

"HAH. Me, a freak of nature? Look at yourself, DUDE. You walk about like men, but I can smell your putrid breath, hear your feathers, and I can even sense your urge to rip me to shreds. Yeah, like you're Mr. I'm-so-normal," I jeered. Apparently that made him mad, though. I mean, the fact that he jumped at me and had to be restrained by his "teammates" kind of gave that fact away. I took a startled step backwards and I could feel his pleasure at having scared me a little. "I'm not scared!" I yelled on impulse. Everybody laughed at that.

I thought I heard an opening, you know, with my SONAR and crap. Yeah, that's right, SONAR. Sorry, it's a fun word. I pressed my wings against me and sprinted through the opening and into the night sky where I jumped off the ground and tried my hardest to stay in the air. It's amazing what adrenaline does in fight or flight situations. Oh wow, I totally just made an unintentional pun. I had to get this do-hicky off my neck, NOW. I had to stop those freaks from ever catching me again. Oh great, I heard their heavy bodies kick off from the ground and into the air after me.

They were gaining after me. "Stop following me, you jerks!" I yelled back at them as they were catching up to me. I continued to rise up into the night sky and they continued after me, continually gaining. _Crap crap crap crap crap_, I continually thought. I just wasn't as practiced at flying as they were. They were going to catch me. Then I felt something rising in my throat. No, I wasn't going to barf. No, I had nothing left in my stomach to heave. But that feeling kept rising and rising until I couldn't hold it in anymore. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but it didn't sound like a human scream. Nope. Not a human scream at all. I screamed and what came out was a loud screech, a bat's voice that echoed. You know echolocation.

Well apparently that helped me. Those dudes clutched their ears and they dropped to the ground like dead flies. I smelled their blood and I heard the crashes into the brush beneath. I both winced at the clarity of the sound and laughed at their misfortune. Now all I need to do is come up with a new name, find a place to stay, and most importantly, get this stupid tracking device OFF my neck before I get attacked again.

Man, I needed to learn how to fight.


End file.
